Purchased Lumber for Frame

Went to Lowe's with my dad in his Ford Escape. Purchased lumber for frame:

1 piece 4'x8'x3/4" birch plywood, cut in half into two 4'x4'x3/4"
1 piece 4'x8'x1/2" birch plywood, cut in half into two 4'x4'x1/2"
Total for R2 lumber: $68.88

Book Ordered, Supplies Purchased

Ordered Robot Builder's Bonanza from Amazon today.
Robot Builder's Bonanza

Went to Home Depot to check out 4'x8' birch, and ask if it could be cut in 4' x 4' sheets. Couldn't tell if their plywood was birch. They can cut it down, but their saw was out of order for a few days.

Purchased Carpenter's Square, 4 packages of JB Weld, goggles/masks, ear protection muffs, Crazy Glue, Elmer's Interior/Exterior wood glue. Total: $56.62.

Rockler Bearing

Called Rocker store on Tustin Ave. in Orange to see if they have the lazy susan bearing in stock. They said they had one left, so I picked it up. $65.72 out the door.

Artoo's neck:

Meet with Kelvin

Met with Kelvin to go over tools and stuff. Showed Kelvin the Frame Building Tutorial. He said I could borrow his power tools.

DVDs Arrive

Celebration II and R2LA I DVDs that I ordered from Michael McMaster arrive.

Meet with Mike

Met with Mike Senna from 1:00pm - 3:40pm. Mike showed me some of the DVD material for leg-building.

Took lots of notes and pictures. These pictures are NOT OF MY R2 (still to be built), they are of Mike's.




We covered a lot of ground beyond what my questions covered. It's pretty evident that building R2 take a lot of forethought and innovating thinking.

Skins Arrive

Aluminum skins by John Sherrell arrived. At least one of the punch-outs from the inner skin (just above the power coupling) is missing, not sure if that will be a problem or not. [Later learned that's okay.] The punch-out to the right of that one was punched-out, but in the box.

Ordered CII and R2LA I DVDs from Mike McMaster.

(Also ordered Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger from Amazon today, credit card starting to take a bruising.)

First Post to R2 Builder's Group

First post to R2 Builders Group on Yahoo. Post #83209, helped out with R2 notes in picture in Vanity Fair from 2002. Posting looked all malformed due to poor line breaking, probably due to browser issues on my Mac.

Skins, Dome Ordered, Notebook

Started "Victor's R2 Builder's Notebook"
Ordered John Sherrell's aluminum skins and the R&J dome today via PayPal.

Talked to Mike

Spoke with Mike Senna by phone for about 45 minutes. Equipped with a somewhat nascent R2-building vocabulary, I was able to ask Mike about the details of his R2 construction and other R2 building issues (e.g. tools, sources).